A Rose in Glass
by Aria Illusine
Summary: AU NaruSaku retelling of the ORIGINAL Beauty and the Beast fairytale not Disney . Sakura is drawn to stories of the mysterious Konoha, a country that disappeared. And when she takes her father's place at the Beast's castle...she finds a...connection.
1. Blood's Grudge and Legacy

Welcome to a retelling of the classic fairytale, Beauty and the Beast, a NaruSaku AU fic entitled A Rose in Glass. There are other pairings (of course ^^) but it's mainly NaruSaku. Rated T to be safe for some blood, gore, and occasional swearing. Be forewarned, this fic will probably be slow and long and NOT the Disney movie version but a modified version of the original Beaumont with Disney and Robin McKinley influences. If it gets convoluted and confusing, don't hesitate to let me know ^^.

Finally Beta'd by the amazing and awesome Ginkan without whom I would be VERY lost!! Go read her stories and show her love because she's wonderful! ^^

Summary: Sakura is drawn to stories of a mysterious kingdom called Konoha, that seems to be only half-remembered in peoples' memories. When she takes her father's place in the Beast's castle, she slowly comes to realize a connection between the stories she likes so much...and the fox-beast who keeps her prisoner.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (the cast belongs to Kishimoto-sensei), nor Beauty and the Beast.

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**A Rose in Glass**

**Chapter 1: Blood's Grudge and Legacy**

Blood soaked into the silk of his sleeve, as sticky as tar against his pale fingers. The metallic tang of blood was like an overly thick perfume, permeating the damp chill of his workroom until he could hardly breathe. It was as if a strangling vine had curled around his throat and pulled tight as a garrote. But the pain and nausea hardly rivaled the hatred that curled in his gut. Even now, weak with blood loss, his vision dimmed with the dark emotion. Breaths coming in ragged gasps, he slumped against the rough, stone finish of his workroom, fighting the penetrating numbness in the arm dangling uselessly at his side.

"Anko…ANKO," he rasped, each word a mangled hiss. "ANKO!"

"Orochimaru-sama!" his workroom assistant cried, face ashen as she took in her master. _How could they do this to him? He was the king's chancellor!_ Her mind raged as her nerveless fingers scrabbled across his work table, searching for any sort of cloth to staunch the blood that painted her master's chest and right arm. Even from a distance she could feel the stench like a physical force; there was blood on the wall, the floor, her lord's clothes, his hair. It was almost unbelievable that he could still be alive; sitting slumped against the wall in a pool of the vibrantly crimson liquid.

"Don't pity me!" he snarled as she knelt to bandage him. "I don't need your filthy pity!" He managed a sneer at her before his eyes glazed over with pain, not even noticing as Anko flinched from his venomous words.

"They laughed; they looked horrified," he hissed. "They _mocked_ me, all except the king and my two _friends_," he spat. "And _those_ three stood there in their self-righteous morality and had the temerity to look horrified! At _me_!"

His eyes blazed scarlet; his hand shot out to crush Anko's windpipe.

Her pupils shrank as her fingers scrabbled at the hand slowly, inexorably, overpowering her, heart fluttering hummingbird fast as terror flushed like ice through her veins. Anko's lips trembled with silent pleas.

Snake-like eyes slitted and, with disgust, he tossed the woman away from him.

Anko struggled to breathe as she lay like a rag doll on the cold, dank floor, a perfect bloody handprint marring her throat and terror thudding harshly in her chest.

=*~*~*=

It was a bright afternoon, golden, perfect. Hardly a day to be disgruntled, but the fifteen-year-old slumped in his seat was looking just that, blond brows irritable over his sky blue eyes.

"Naruto." The golden-haired boy twisted around in his seat, "Yeah Shikamaru?" his irritation plain in his tone and the spark in his eyes.

"You're being troublesome."

Naruto snorted rudely, turning away from his longtime friend, the utter lack of manners noted with rolled eyes by the blonde girl shifting from one foot to the other on the disgruntled boy's other side.

"I didn't ask for this," he almost whined, pointing – another etiquette breach – to indicate the high-ceilinged hall before them. "It's my birthday; I shouldn't have to be here!"

"So why are you?" the blonde girl asked, a friendly smirk teasing her lips as she flicked her ponytail over her shoulder. "Normally you'd have figured some way to worm out of this because you know the Lady Regent gives you way too much leeway."

The birthday boy slouched even lower in his seat, crossing arms over his chest as he sunk down. "Because it's my birthday, Ino," he explained in an aggrieved mutter. "Tsunade-baachan said I had to show I respected the people and the kingdom." Naruto sighed, running a hand through his messy golden hair. "It's not like I don't get it; I just hate court days."

"Good, boy," a voice said tartly from behind him. "I was thinking I might have to beat the lesson into you, and I didn't want to do anything more strenuous on your birthday. Putting together the party was trouble enough." The speaker's chocolate eyes softened as they swept over her charge, a boy she had raised like her own son since his father had passed away nearly seven years ago.

He was the splitting image of his own father from childhood, she could attest to it; she had been a court mage apprentice during Minato's own teenage years. In face and form Naruto and his father's younger self could have been twins with the same messy blond hair, open sky-blue eyes. They both had that almost-too-wide smile that threatened to grin and cheerfully optimistic disposition. In personality they were somewhat different though. Then again, Minato had been raised under the care of his formal but loving parents until his mid-twenties. Naruto had never known the mother who had died giving birth to him, and lost his greatest hero, his father, at an early age.

And yet he had taken over the duties handed to him with a determination that had surprised Tsunade. Even she was unsure whether Minato would have had Naruto's strength of spirit in the face of orphan-hood and a sooner-than-expected rise to power. Then again, he had been a genius. He probably would have been able to handle it.

'_And yet, whenever I reflect how well Naruto has done in the last several years, he acts like a spoiled five-year-old brat_,' she sighed to herself, suppressing the urge to smack him one upside the head as she used to when he _had_ been five. She contented herself with giving the boy's shoulder an impressively painful squeeze; Naruto winced, mumbling a quiet "ow…" as she let go.

"Now listen to your subjects' requests like the ruler you want to be," Tsunade commanded, hiding her pride in him with practiced ease. She glanced down at the prince's still pouting form.

"And stop slouching in your throne, Naruto-kun."

=::=

Naruto sighed, tugging the collar of his royal garb to get a little more air as he skulked in the shadows of the balcony, fiddling with the fox mask over his features until he had it pulled up so that he could see more than the almond-shaped eye-slits let him. "Who told the tailor I liked high collars?" he complained to the cool autumn night, not really expecting an answer. Hoping not to get one. Even an extrovert needed downtime. A little quiet on the secluded balcony wrapped in the scents of a nearby orchard was the perfect escape.

Not that he had any reason to want to escape his own birthday masquerade. The court had outdone themselves this evening, proof that the last three weeks hadn't been wasted. But there was only so much he could take of being chased around by noble girls and their marriage-minded mothers. Regardless of the fact that Tsunade was helping him rule Konoha as the Lady Regent until he turned twenty-one, he was going to be king one day, and that made him every girl's dream catch.

"Magpies," he grumbled, "I'm not some shiny crown jewel and I'll marry when I want to!"

Besides, it was always really awkward dealing with polite, demure, court girls since the only real female friend he had ever had was a girl who still called him "deadbeat prince" from time to time. Not your average noble girl at all; it was something he really appreciated about Ino, that opinionated nature of hers, even when he got on the wrong side of her scathing tongue.

And she'd saved him from enough pushy mothers and their timid little daughters to last a lifetime. He really did owe her one. Or two. Or twenty-six. He'd lost track of the exact count nearly an hour ago.

He shook his head fiercely, almost dislodging the gold and orange mask perched on top of his hair, trying to rid himself of unpleasant thoughts. "Think about birthday gifts, that's gotta be better than Magpies!"

"Or," he let his lips curl into a soft, boyish grin, "A girl who isn't a simpering pushover. That would definitely be better than even birthday presents." A pleased hum echoed in the back of his throat as he began to imagine this unconventional woman. "I don't want her too serious," he told the darkness, matter-of-factly. "I get enough of that with Ino and Tsunade-baachan, and Ten Ten too now that I think about it," he said, naming the armory's keeper he had befriended a few years back. "I want to be able to make her laugh. And smart; she's going to be my future queen so she'd need to be intelligent. And strong. Eh… Not that she has to be that way physically, necessarily. But y'know, emotionally."

"My, my, I'm flattered. You seemed to be describing me to a 'T' there, and you said that was what you wanted in a future queen?"

Naruto whirled around, one hand gripping the smooth marble banister, the other groping for a weapon that wasn't there. _That's the last time I listen to Kiba when he tells me I don't need to wear my sword on my birthday because "Come on Naruto, who's going to try to attack the crown prince on his birthday?"_ he griped mentally.

"Who's there?" he demanded, still tense for action though he'd dropped his sword hand in an effort not to let it show. "Stop hiding!"

"Hiding, your majesty? Mitarashi Anko never hides." The laugh made the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. It was dark, almost too rough to be a woman's, and condescending. The kind the Magpies would give him while they pushed their shy-faced daughters at him. It made his skin crawl. "I was merely waiting for the right moment."

She stepped into the moonlight.

Naruto's cerulean eyes darkened, a frown creasing his brow as he took in the intruder.

Rich, violet hair framed her face, drawing the gaze to her startlingly dark eyes. Her body was wrapped in ebony silks, a gown that accented her pale, pale skin. It glowed luminescently in the deepening evening, and with a flinch of shock he realized she gleamed in the moonlight because her skin was chased with the scales of a snake.

"So, my prince, were you thinking of proposing tonight?" she teased, slinking forward as graceful as a cat. "Or were you thinking only of stringing me on?" Her cold fingers walked up Naruto's arm as he backed away into the hard marble of the banister, wary of her advance.

"Forgive me Anko-san, I didn't intend to imply a proposal," he apologized, stiffly, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise like an animal's hackles. "I have to return to my masquerade."

"Why, Naruto-sama," the woman murmured, laughing huskily in his ear. "This is a cold welcome."

"I have no wish to marry yet," Naruto replied; frown deepening as he backed away from her.

A smirk swept over her features and she shed the sultry look she had been turning on him. "I told Orochimaru-sama you wouldn't be seduced by me," she laughed. Her dark eyes slitted like a snake's. "All the better. My other orders are more…fun." Those sable eyes hardened into shards of obsidian, and her plum-colored lips turned down from their arrogantly mischievous expression into a grim line.

"Take my master's vengeance, and as you writhe in agony, curse your father for your fate!" she spat, snatching a blood-and-violet amulet from around her neck to smash into the back of his left hand as it rested on the marble banister.

Swirls of blood red, black, and violet blossomed as the glass amulet shattered, fragments embedding into the back of Naruto's hand and Anko's palm. Blood comingled as the spell flowed from the snake woman into the prince.

A cry of pain forced its way out of Naruto's throat as a searing burn embedded into the marrow of his bones, like his bones had turned into lava and his blood into molten metal. His vision blurred, nausea rippling in his gut. His flesh felt like melting wax, bubbling and frothing until he fell to his hands and knees as nausea forced blood into his throat.

"Naruto? NARUTO!"

"Tsu-Tsuna…." He gasped, crimson liquid painting his lips.

"Too late, Tsunade-sama, Jiraiya-sama," Anko laughed raspily, pale face growing more ashen as her lifeblood seeped out of the poisoned wound in her hand. "Orochimaru-sama sends his love."

The court wizard and lady regent stiffened, frozen by the familiar name as they watched in horror as the prince coughed blood onto the white marble, red splatters a chilling contrast to the pale stone.

"What is this?!" Tsunade demanded, lunging for the swaying woman in ebony. "What have you done to him?!"

Anko giggled mockingly, miraculously dodging Tsunade's grasp as a thin dribble of blood coursing down her cheek from an eye, a black tearstain in the moonlight. "Orochimaru-sama sends the prince a birthday gift. He shall be no longer human but take on the form of a hideous beast!"

She waved a hand at a crimson gleam that began to emanate from Naruto's bleeding wound, coalescing into a rose with petals of the same rich color as the liquid that oozed from the ragged gashes in his hand. It floated up between them, a silvery sheen swirling around it until it settled, a rose in a gleaming glass bell jar seated atop a small, round table. "The rose will bloom until the prince's twenty-first birthday where the final petal will fall from the stem and he will DIE!"

She laughed madly, bloodshot eyes darting from mage to regent and back. "Not that it matters, the people will kill their own prince, not knowing he is trapped in that beast's body, or someone will carelessly touch the rose of his life force and kill him, before he turns that age anyway! Take Orochimaru-sama's revenge, fools, and despair!"

Tsunade lunged for her again, and the woman fell limp into her arms. She snarled angrily, setting the woman down onto the marble floor as Jiraiya approached the groaning prince.

"She's dead," Tsunade spat. "Damn Orochimaru!"

"Enough, Tsunade-hime," Jiraiya called softly, a single point of calm amid the swirling chaos that was Orochimaru's spell. "Naruto-kun needs us."

Tsunade crouched down beside Jiraiya, feeling lightheaded at how surreal the situation seemed. On the other side of the glass, Naruto's birthday masque continued, the strains of instruments floating through to the darkened balcony where the prince coughed up blood and growled in pain. Jiraiya's hands skimmed Naruto's forehead, glowing pale silver with power as he tried to deduce the spell's mechanisms.

He shook his head, frustrated and dejected. "I'm sorry, Tsunade-hime, Orochimaru…he knew what he was doing. I can't undo this spell."

"Nothing? Jiraiya, please…there has to be something!" Her hands fisted in his robe as she begged into his shoulder, hating this moment of weakness. But Naruto was as precious to her as her own son or grandson. She couldn't let him fall to this fate without a fight. "Something, anything!"

An idea blazed into her mind and, before even giving herself a moment to consider, she jerked the necklace over her head and thrust it into Jiraiya's hands.

"Your family's heirloom?" Jiraiya asked, stunned. The jewel pendant was Tsunade's family legacy, a powerful magic amplifier that drew on the wearer's desires. Tsunade had never found a need to use it and so it had languished for decades, until now.

"Concentrate on Naruto," Jiraiya instructed quietly, wrapping Tsunade's hands around the jewel. "A curse this powerful, you can't eliminate it, you can only change its course a little. Keep that in mind. This is your family's magic; you must be the one to channel the spell."

She nodded mindlessly, already focusing all her being on the unconscious boy.

_Naruto_.

He was…so like his father; strong at heart, determined, diligent at the duties he held for the kingdom he loved. Since childhood he had wanted to be just like his father, the king of a prosperous nation, the beloved leader of a people that loved him. Even now, bound by law to be merely a prince and ruler only in name of the country that was his birthright, he strove to be the best that he could. Almost too hard, except that his determined personality was tempered with a delighted love of being able to enjoy life. And perhaps that was what made him such a beloved prince, already much prided by the people of Konoha. Everyone drew on the strength of his heart.

_A heart's strength…a heart's desire…._

"Naruto-kun…has the strongest heart of anyone," Tsunade murmured, pulled into a semi-trance as the necklace's magic coiled tendrils of power around her and the boy. "He would fight this spell, he would say that anyone can change destiny, and find a way to live…. Orochimaru tried to make him hated, hated by everyone in Konoha…hated enough to get killed because the people wouldn't see him and only a beast. But. It. Shall. Not. Be!"

The light of the magic thrashed around her, faster now; cocooning her with blinding aquamarine threads so bright she could no longer see the boy lying in front of her. "Orochimaru might have made you look hideous on the outside, Naruto," she said, her hazel eyes flashing with determination, voice sharp. "But Naruto is still Naruto, no matter what you look like on the outside. And there will be someone who will see that. There _must_ be someone who can see that. And if she can love you for who you are, not what you appear to be, before the last petal falls from the rose, you will be returned to your true form as a human prince and no beast."

Tendrils of magic flowed from the necklace, from Tsunade and Jiraiya, from the very air around them, sinking bit by bit into the prone figure of the unconscious prince until his very skin crackled with the power of the spell inside him.

With a cry that was half snarl, Naruto arched, reddish fur bursting out over his flesh, morphing him as it enveloped his body.

Tsunade, drained from her magic working, could only watch in horror as the boy was changed before her eyes from a human to an anthropomorphic nine-tailed fox beast.

"You did well, Tsunade-hime," Jiraiya whispered as he held his shell-shocked childhood friend in his arms. "Naruto-kun will break the spell."

She nodded wordlessly, slipping her necklace over the beast's head.

Jiraiya turned away, leaving Tsunade to her quiet grief, bringing his hands together to begin forming the seals of magical transformation.

"So that Naruto is not hunted by his people out of their ignorance, change the palace and it's surroundings into a mansion and its people into the objects and furnishings within. Make it impenetrable to anyone of less than pure intentions, the wards of the place tied to Naruto's heart," Jiraiya commanded, forming the last seal.

Trembling hands fisted into his robe, and Jiraiya pulled Tsunade into his arms as the swirling mist billowed about them in the very beginnings of the transformation.

"We've given Naruto the chance he needs to live, Tsunade-hime," Jiraiya murmured reassuringly into her hair. "We've done all we can. Now…we must trust him."

In his arms, Tsunade nodded.

=*~*~*=

"I'm adopted," Sakura said, a touch bluntly, correctly interpreting the book seller's quizzical expression when she introduced Hinata and Hanabi as her younger sisters.

"Sakura-neesan…" Hinata protested softly.

"It's okay Hinata-chan, it saves time in the long run," Sakura assured her, brushing imaginary dust from Hinata's shoulder to distract the younger girl from her distress.

"Sakura-neesan is right, Hinata-neesan," Hanabi agreed from the worried girl's other side. "By explaining things up front, Sakura-neesan is keeping gossip and speculation from spreading about the…possible legitimacy of Sakura-neesan's birth."

_Sharp child_, the bookseller cum librarian noted. _She might be young but she knows how things will look. Politically minded noble for all she dresses like a merchant's daughter._ And she was right. Anyone who saw the three girls standing side by side wouldn't be able to help but wonder if their father's late wife hadn't perhaps been familiar with another man before Hinata had been born. Sakura and her younger sisters looked nothing alike.

Both younger girls sported their father's pale lavender eyes, the color in them as faint as the tint of a moonflower, and hair as dark as sable. Sakura was all bright colors where her sisters were monochrome. Her hair was a blush-rose hue, cut slightly uneven as though the person handling the scissors had been nervous, or an amateur. The longest ends brushed the crimson shawl pulled around her shoulders. But it was her eyes that really drew her observer's attention. They were green as emeralds and aspen leaves. The colors that might have clashed on another seemed appropriate and even natural on this girl.

"New faces, have you traveled far?" she asked, motherly instinct making her unwilling to let the girls wander back into the marketplace bustle just yet.

"A little," Hinata answered shyly. "We moved inland from the coast."

"From the capital, perhaps? Our small town must seem pretty boring after the excitement you'd find there," the woman laughed, brushing hair out of her dark vermillion eyes.

"Not at all," Hinata protested, flushing a deep crimson. "I…I think it's very…picturesque. It's…calming…."

"Kurenai," the bookseller supplied, realizing what Hinata was looking for. "Please call me Kurenai." She glanced at Hinata's blood and adopted sisters, one idly scanning the passersby, the other gazing hungrily at the dusty display of books in the shop window. "Are they not very talkative to strangers?" she asked, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

Hinata giggled, blushing a bright pink as she attempted to stammer an explanation. "S-Sakura-neesan loves books and Hanabi-chan t-takes a while to feel familiar with others, Kurenai-san."

"Well then," the dark-haired woman smiled, "Come inside. I have books enough to interest Sakura-chan, and maybe Hanabi-chan will feel more comfortable indoors." Kurenai's eyes softened, "And you can meet my son."

=::=

"Kurenai-san, tell us about Makoto-kun's father, please?" Hanabi requested when they had settled inside the bookstore with tea.

"Hanabi-chan," Sakura protested, running a fingernail nervously across the smooth surface of the teacup in her hands. "Don't be nosy." Except she couldn't really say that since she was curious herself.

A man filled the portraits ranged about behind the bookshop's counter nearby, love filling his gentle brown eyes, obvious in the way he smiled at the woman he held in his arms. The last likeness of him also featured a pregnant Kurenai. The remaining sketches were solely of Kurenai and her son.

"It's alright, Sakura-chan," Kurenai assured the seventeen-year-old, taking a sip of her tea, the picture of calm relaxation. She glanced over at the three-year-old curled up on a step stool with a picture book and smiled a strange, sadness tinted, smile.

"Asuma was my husband; Makoto is our only son. He…I believe he died…a few months before Makoto-chan was born, in the downfall of Konoha."

"Konoha?" Sakura asked curiously, feeling a tingling thrill run up and down her arms. Something about the name seemed to call her, alluring and strange.

Kurenai nodded, setting down her tea to fold her hands in her lap. "Konoha is – was – a small, prosperous country east of here. Three or so years ago something happened, an assassination attempt, I'm not certain. But great magic happened and the palace, the capital city of Konoha, all of it disappeared that night…along with my husband." The woman stared off into the past, her vermillion eyes filled with a faraway look. "I never saw him again…."

"We're…so sorry, Kurenai-san…" Hinata apologized, tears brimming in her pale eyes. "We shouldn't have…"

"It's alright," Kurenai reassured. "I have Makoto-chan. I only regret that Asuma never saw his son…and Makoto-chan never knew is father."

"Can…can we visit you again?"

Kurenai's eyes were soft as she brushed her fingers against Hanabi's damp cheek. "Whenever you like, little one."

=*~*~*=

"Sakura-neesan?"

"I'm coming, Hanabi-chan," Sakura called with a laugh as she hurried down the stairs to join her fifteen-year-old sister in the front hall, almost flying down the stairwell. She glanced at the banister, her temptation to slide down it bright in her emerald eyes. Her lips quirked with a smile as she surveyed the bland look that crossed her younger sibling's face. "What?"

"Sometimes, it's hard to remember that Sakura-neesan is almost twenty," the youngest daughter said, serious and grave. But she smiled and pulled on a cloak with an impatient gesture to her oldest sister, and years of living with her told Sakura that Hanabi was excited and in a hurry for all her seriousness.

"I know, I know, I'm – oh good morning Father," Sakura said, greeting her father as he exited his room with a kiss on the cheek.

Hyuuga Hiashi smiled as his eldest and youngest daughters hurried out the front door. "Goodbye Sakura-chan, Hanabi-chan," he called after them.

"Where are they off to?" he asked as the front door shut somewhat violently behind them.

"Kurenai-san's bookshop of course, Father," Hinata laughed as she appeared from the house's kitchen. "The two nearly live there!"

Hiashi's lavender eyes softened as he appraised his middle child. The last two and a half years since their move to the small, provincial town they lived in now had been unexpectedly unconventional. Debt had taken away the family's dukedom, their lands and holdings, and in disgrace he had been forced to take his children into the country as a poor merchant to live in this last house of their lands. He could only be thankful that gossip hadn't traveled here to turn the town's inhabitants away from his children.

It had been unexpectedly nice to be accepted at face value.

The family was much different now than it had been during their golden years as the most powerful family of the nation besides the royal lineage, yet Hiashi couldn't bring himself to feel too much regret. They were…happier here, he felt.

Quiet, compliant Sakura had taken a job under the tutelage of the village's aged herb-mage, Chiyo-baasan, who had spotted her hidden talent in healing magic, growing into a self-confident and now somewhat outspoken nineteen-year-old girl who was renowned for both her compassionate heart and sharp tongue. His youngest, a brusque and curt fifteen-year-old, had softened, partly due to the fact that social pressures had lessened in the rural setting, partly because of the motherly love and kindness showered on all three of his daughters by Kurenai. And shy Hinata…

Hers had been perhaps the biggest change.

Hiashi blamed himself for not realizing it when they had lived as nobility; the pressures of society had been greater for Hinata, greater than even what Hanabi had felt, because she had been often outshone by her intelligent – if adopted – older sister. As the true eldest of the main Hyuuga family, she had felt unnecessary in the face of her intellectually charming older sister and socially talented younger sibling.

The same could not be said now.

The middle child had developed into an accomplished young woman, as assured in her place in their new and humble, provincial world as her sisters. They had learned, early on when they couldn't afford even a cook for their new accommodations, that Hinata could cook, and mend, and keep accounts, and in general run the household as she had never had a chance as a duke's daughter. Hiashi knew she felt indispensible to the family now, and no amount of persuasion could convince his middle daughter that she had been just as indispensible to them before their debt and destitution.

"And what are you to amuse yourself with today my dear?" Hiashi asked, warmly wrapping an arm around his middle child.

"I thought I could visit Gai-san and request another delivery of wood before winter snows us in," Hinata said, smiling up at her father. "It's been getting much chillier lately."

"I must remember to send out for sides of ribs and beef haunches earlier this year," Hiashi said, almost as a side-note to himself. "I hope we can avoid being snowed in as we did last winter."

"Father, that was hardly your fault," Hinata protested with a gentle laugh; this was an argument they had repeated many times over the last few weeks as the leaves of autumn had gathered at their doorstep. "It was so warm the week before the worst frost that we all thought fall had come again."

"Nevertheless, daughter," Hiashi replied with a laugh of his own. "I would prefer not to have Hanabi recounting to us tales of cannibalistic men on their becalmed ships every evening over dinners of potato stew. Sometimes I almost wish I could ask Kurenai-san to restrict her reading material!"

Their laughter subsided as father and daughter settled into comfortable silence, one quietly contemplating his child as she in turn contemplated if they would need more supplies than they had already stockpiled in the cellar to last out the winter.

"Father, do you mind greatly that Sakura-neesan, Hanabi, and I spend so much time out of the house lately?" Hinata asked presently, noticing that her father was watching her still.

"No, Hinata-chan," he answered her, his large and work-worn hands patting her head as he had when she was very small, before her mother had died. "It gives me a chance to work my way through the creditors' letters without worrying you girls."

Hinata sighed, "Father…."

Hiashi chuckled. "We are pulling out of debt slowly but surely and our life here is not terrible, is it?"

"Hardly, Father," Hinata reassured him, smiling her calmest. She wrapped herself in a cloak from the closet by the door and let her father walk her to the front gate of their modest, two-story residence. "I'll make sure the we return home by dinnertime."

"Good. I would hate to have to eat my own cooking," her father replied, laughing as he waved his daughter off.

=::=

"Why Hinata-chan, blossom of endless youth!"

"Hinata-chan?" Sakura pulled herself from the book realm of magic and valor she had been immersed in all morning to scan the street. Gai-san's exuberant cries were hard to ignore, even for someone like her who tended to get lost in the fantasylands of books at a moment's notice.

Through the window she could see the older half of the village's courier service gesticulate wildly at her sister, managing to convey through gestures – he now spoke at a level that she couldn't hear behind the thick glass of Kurenai-san's shop – his joy at being of service.

Sakura giggled to herself as she tucked a bookmark between the pages of the book in her hands. While Hinata had become much less withdrawn in their years since moving to the village, Gai-san's effervescent personality could still be a bit much from time to time.

"I should probably go rescue her," Sakura murmured mischievously as she set her book down and made for the door.

"Leave Gai-san outside please!" Hanabi and Kurenai chorused from the back of the shop where they were taking tea.

Neither had any problem with the outgoing courier; both were truly on friendly terms with him and his son, Lee, but Gai's natural manner had caused havoc in the quiet bookshop on more than one occasion and last time the afternoon tea had taken a very large turn for the worse. He had been consequently, if secretly, banned from the store ever since. Sakura would have felt more sympathy for the man if he hadn't knocked her into a passing poultry cart that day. She'd been picking goose down out of her hair for a week.

She was contemplating the best way to turn the man's attention away from her sister when a flying watermelon did the job for her.

"Gai-san! Watch out!"

She gasped as the man twisted out of the projectile fruit's trajectory with practiced ease, wrapping a long arm around Hinata's waist to twist both of them around, pulling the young girl away so that watermelon shrapnel splattered only his uniform when the ballistic fruit made abrupt contact with the side of a nearby stall.

"I'm so sorry sir, miss, forgive me!" a gangly, bespectacled man cried, several steps behind his fruit and bright red with anguish. "I…I lost control of the cart and…."

"No reason to be flustered," Gai reassured him, smiling his nicest. "The lady and myself were unharmed."

The man spluttered, still crimson and tripping over apologies as Gai tried to calm him and the scene drew a crowd in the middle of the marketplace. Hinata, unused to all the attention, flushed redder than the fruit vendor and vainly tried to extricate herself from Gai's grasp.

"Please, Ebisu-san, there is little harm done."

Kurenai's lilting voice of reason floated above the marketplace noise, quieting the onlookers. "I'm certain you meant no harm and both Gai-san and Hinata-chan are fine. In fact, I don't believe Hinata's gown is even stained so please don't let us detain you from your work." It was gracious but a clear dismissal nonetheless. Spectators flowed back into the usual market traffic, leaving only Gai, Hinata, and Sakura at the bookshop's doorstep.

"Gai-san, I hope I'm not being rude," Kurenai added when Ebisu made his last apologies and left, "but I think all the attention has embarrassed Hinata-chan. I really must take her inside."

Gai nodded cordially, brushing stray watermelon pulp from his cuffs. It wasn't until after Kurenai had led a rather stunned and quiet Hinata indoors that he noticed a familiar face practically burning holes into his back with emerald green eyes.

"Can I help you, Sakura-chan?" he asked jovially, turning a too-bright smile in her direction. The expression faltered and died a little under the nineteen-year-old's scrutiny.

"Were you ever a knight, Gai-san?"

"Now what could give you that idea?" the green-clad courier asked with a laugh that sounded a tad forced, even to him. "No commoner can become a knight!"

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Gai-san, please give me some credit. I have been training under Chiyo-baasan as a healer mage for over two years. The way you moved when you rescued my sister from that watermelon, it's obvious that you've been trained to fight."

"Ah well, that's true I suppose," Gai said, rubbing the back of his neck in something akin to embarrassment.

It surprised Sakura; next to nothing seemed to faze the exuberant courier, but this conversation was apparently doing just that.

"My childhood playmate was noble-born, a baron's son," Gai confessed. "He was the independent one back then and I the on-again off-again rival and best friend who chased after him. So when he left our hometown to become a knight at the capital, I followed and enlisted in the army."

"And…?" Sakura urged, curious. Gai had grown quiet but by the way he stared, lost in the past, she could guess there was more to the story than what he was telling her.

"And there isn't much more to tell," Gai replied, smiling in an uncharacteristically soft way Sakura had never seen before. "Kakashi became a knight and I rose in the ranks of the army and while I was away with my son to pay our respects at my mother's funeral, our kingdom disappeared."

"Our kingdom…" a cold thrill flooded her veins. "Konoha," Sakura breathed, sinking down to sit on the bookshop's doorstep, goosebumps running up and down her arms as she whispered the name of the nation she had heard only a handful of times since her arrival in the small provincial country town.

Gai nodded. "I am not an Otohan as everyone in this village assumes," Gai said, trying to tint his words with amusement. "I tried to find it again but…" he trailed off, dark eyes shadowed. "But, Sakura-chan, don't worry," he reassured, noticing his young companion's expression. "Lee and I have a good life here! And being a courier is good work." He laughed, patting the girl's head as if she were his own daughter, mindless of the slightly irked look that crossed her face at being treated like a twelve-year-old.

Sakura was considering whether or not to further question Gai about Konoha – she'd heard so little over the years about the mysteriously nonexistent country – when the decision was made for her with the advent of her two younger sisters exiting the bookshop with Kurenai and Makoto in tow.

"Sakura-neesan."

She brushed dust from her gown as she rose and turned a bright but meaningful smile to the courier. "Thank you, Gai-san, for the interesting story. I'd love to hear more of it another time."

"Of course, Sakura-chan," the man replied. "And Hinata-chan, I'll send Lee by with a bill for firewood later this week," he promised before letting the trio of girls go.

If Sakura noticed that he seemed relieved to see them off, she kept it to herself.

"Sakura-neesan, I have the book you were reading earlier," Hanabi piped when the three were clear of the marketplace and headed up the winding road that would eventually lead to their house. "You must have been really distracted to leave it behind."

Sakura flushed, feeling her skin prickle hot as she accepted the volume from her younger sister and tried to ignore both her and Hinata's curious glances. This almost never happened.

"I-I guess I was…distracted?" she finished lamely. "Gai-san was telling me about his past."

"And how is the book you're reading?" Hinata asked, sensing her sister wanted a change of subject. She smiled serenely as Sakura threw her a look of thanks.

"It's wonderful!" Sakura bubbled, happy to talk about a safer subject. She didn't want to worry her younger sisters with her strange fascination with the mysterious kingdom of Konoha.

"It's about magic and romance and enchantments, and a prince who longs for a princess but doesn't even get to meet her until the end of chapter three…" Sakura's comfortable ramble about her latest book sped their way home.

By the time they rounded the bend in the road that split off the main street to their house the air of discomfort around Sakura had lightened though she was unable to fully banish Gai and Konoha from her mind. But even she forgot them when they noticed their father standing, unusually pale in the fading light, at the front gate. It wasn't unusual for him to come out to greet them, but the look in his eyes was grim.

"Father?" Hinata asked as the girls sprinted the distance between them.

"Sakura, Hinata, Hanabi, please come upstairs with me," Hiashi requested, his pale lilac eyes as grave as the day he'd informed them of their poverty. "I've received a letter from the capital."

* * *

As they say, we authors thrive of reviews, so click that button! Thank you ^^

I'm also open to suggestions about what the enchanted people in Konoha end up being transformed as, especially Shikamaru, Kiba, Shino, and Asuma. And a name for the kingdom the Hyuuga family's a part of (it ISN'T Konoha) and a name for the kingdom's capital as well as the village they're living in would also be SUPER helpful! If I end up using your suggestion you WILL get the credit for it ^^ thank you for your help in advance ^^

The muse would appreciate your cookies ^^ and thank you for reading this monstrously long chapter ^^


	2. The Advent of Winter

WAIII!! The second chapter of A Rose in Glass is FINALLY up!! It's also been wonderfully beta'd by the amazing Ginkan, and there just aren't words to tell you all how excited I am to be uploading this!! I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it ^^

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Naruto, they belong to a very hard-working and brilliant man who deserves much love for giving us such amazing characters to work with! ^^

* * *

**Chapter 2: The Advent of Winter**

Icy dread filled the pit of Sakura's stomach, weighing her down as if she had swallowed lead instead of Hinata's delicious fruit-and-honey porridge for breakfast. As she followed her father up the stairs into his small, cramped study, she could still hear his forbidding words.

'_A letter from the capital….'_

There were only a few assumptions she could make, and none of them were good. The cream-colored sealing wax on the discarded envelope on her father's desk told her plainly it was dire. Official reports of the kingdom were the only ones sealed in cream wax; the subject was undoubtedly linked to the family finances. Only black trim on the letter – signifying a death in the family – would have made the news worse.

"What is it Father?" Hanabi asked, breaking through the turmoil in Sakura's mind.

Hiashi fingered the letter as he settled heavily into the seat behind his desk. He knew it distressed his daughters, seeing him act old, but the news had shaken him and he _felt_ like he'd aged several years. _It's probably best to break the news quickly, before their imaginations get the best of them_, Hiashi considered, already noting the disorderly confusion in Sakura's eyes.

"A ship has come in to harbor; one of the ones that went out three years ago," he watched as his daughters digested the information.

Hanabi's eyes narrowed, Hinata flushed deep crimson, and Sakura bit her lip, green eyes flashing, until she burst out, "So the news is good?" in a tone that implied she thought it must be anything but.

"It's one of my ships, Sakura. It could clear us of our debt," Hiashi explained patiently, trying to persuade her to see the bright side, though the expression she gave him made it plain that she didn't want to see it even if it existed.

"Father," Hanabi's voice was that of reason, "Is there a catch to all of this? Under normal circumstances having our debt cleared at least would be a happy chance but you're not acting like it is."

"It is, Hanabi-chan," Hiashi said reassuringly, "I am merely worried for the next few weeks. I do not like leaving the three of you here alone."

There was a pregnant pause.

"You're leaving?" Sakura cried, color rising into her pale cheeks.

"I have to," her father replied in a tone that brooked no argument. "I am the only one who can dispense of the goods from the ship. I do not like the situation much better than you do but there is no avoiding it. I must go back to the capital."

"But, Father!"

"No, I must go. They will have news of Neji…."

Oldest and youngest daughters fell silent, eyes flickering to the middle daughter as the blood drained from the girl's face, leaving her deathly pale.

"Girls, let us discuss this after dinner," Hiashi urged, concerned for Hinata. "Please, think it over. Hinata, stay a moment, I would like to speak with you."

Sakura and Hanabi slipped out of the study as Hinata closed the door behind them. The two girls exchanged a look as they stood in the hall.

"I-I…Sakura-neesan…"

Sakura glanced down in surprise at her suddenly shy younger sister. It shocked her out of her own depression to realize this break in Hanabi's usual calm.

The fifteen-year-old visibly brought her emotions under control and turned once more serious pale eyes at her sister. "I do not like Father leaving any more than you do but…Neji…."

"I know," Sakura whispered, her fingers lacing with Hanabi's to squeeze comfortingly, though her own feelings were in hectic disarray. "We can't keep him even though we want to. Hinata…Hinata must know…what happened to Neji…"

Hanabi looked over her eldest sister with calm but sharp lavender eyes. "Are you going to have lunch now?" she asked, bluntly, extricating her fingers as the moment between the sisters passed.

Sakura shook her head, green eyes filled with conflicting emotions. "No thanks, Hanabi. I'm…not hungry."

Her younger sister shook her head. "I didn't think you would be." She disappeared into her own room, leaving a bewildered Sakura biting her lip in the hallway.

=*~*~*=

_"H-Hinata-chan?"_

_Sakura could feel her face flushing the same color as her hair as her eyes darted nervously down the hall and back. The mansion was deserted this late at night but she didn't want to disturb either her father or her youngest sister. Neither had been sleeping well since…_

Since Neji…But that's why…_ But that was why she was here now, standing outside her sister's door at three in the morning._

_"Hinata-chan, please, I'm freezing…"_

_The door creaked on stiff hinges, a girl's pale, tear-streaked face appearing in the small chink, the golden light of her candle flooding into the dark hall. The candlelight wavered with the trembling of her fingers._

_"S-Saku-Sakura-ne-neesan," she stammered, lilac eyes brimming again to spill over._

_Sakura hurriedly snatched her handkerchief out of the pocket of her dressing gown, pressing it into the younger girl's hands as she took the candle from her little sister._

_"Come on," she whispered, "I…I'll make you tea…."_

_Hinata giggled, lower lip trembling as she imagined her sister cooking. "P-please don't S-Sakura-neesan," she said with a watery laugh that almost ended in a sob. "I-I'm so-sorry but y-you can't cook…"_

_Sakura smiled back, gently dabbing the last of Hinata's tears with the hem of her nightgown. "I'm glad you're smiling again. After the letter you were so…." She lapsed into silence and the two girls sat on the bed, uncomfortable in their own thoughts until a quiet sniffle from Hinata had Sakura flinging her arms around the younger girl with sisterly feeling._

_"D-don't cry," she shushed, face crimson with embarrassment. They were friends, sisters, since childhood when Hinata's father had first adopted Sakura, but this show of emotion was unusual for any daughter of Duke Hiashi. "Neji…Neji will come back!"_

_As the other girl cried in her arms, a thought struck Sakura._

_"Hi-Hinata-chan…did you…_love_ Neji-kun?"_

_Hinata went silent. Then, "N-no…I d-di-di," she couldn't say it and Sakura held the fifteen-year-old, rocking her back and forth until she stopped trying._

_Sakura held her, not realizing the passing of time until a painful twinge in her back told her she'd been sitting in the same half-bent position around her little sister for too long. Hinata was asleep._

"_Sleep peacefully, Hinata-chan," Sakura whispered as she tucked the younger girl in and took the candle on the bedside table to light her own way back._

"_Neji-niisan will come back to us."_

_Sakura bit back a scream as she whirled around, coming face to face with a serious looking Hanabi standing in a corona of light that spilled from the girl's own door._

"_Neji-niisan will come back to us, even if it takes a long time…longer than any of us would imagine…even after none of us expects him to return," she said, voice low, silvery eyes glowing with an inner fire. "Neji-niisan will come back and all…all will be righted."_

_She blinked and shook her head. "Hello Sakura-neesan, it's very early in the morning to be up. Were you with Hinata-neesan?"_

"_Hanabi-chan you…about Neji-kun," Sakura stammered, goosebumps rising on her arms._

"_That he will return?" the ten-year-old asked calmly. "He will, Sakura-neesan."_

_Sakura gaped. "Are you…were you…having a prophesy?" She'd known that all members of the Hyuuga family had magic in some small way connected with their unique eyes. Hinata would occasionally say she'd glimpsed an ancestor or their deceased relatives wandering the halls and their father could find objects that were lost, but she hadn't known that Seeing the future had been part of the family's magic._

_Hanabi merely smiled a small, still smile, eyes carefully blank, and slipped back into her room and, nonplussed, Sakura went back to her own chambers and tossed and turned in bed until dawn._

=*~*~*=

"Sakura-neesan?"

She broke out of her memories, slipping out of bed to get the door. Hanabi stood outside, lavender eyes unhappy.

"What's wrong?"

"Father wants to see you in the study," she said. The younger girl hesitated before adding, "I'm…I'm sorry he's going…"

Sakura smiled sadly and squeezed her sister's shoulder. "Me too." She slipped into her father's room.

He was packing already; the decision was already made.

"Father, please…don't go," Sakura requested softly, feeling selfish and terrible as her emerald eyes sadly watched her father put down the vest he had been folding for his trunk. She knew she couldn't change his mind.

"Come sit, Sakura-chan," Hiashi sighed, patting the coverlet on his bed, waiting until his eldest settled herself before continuing. "Sakura-chan, this might be my only chance to pay off our debts and…find out…. I know you and your sisters have never complained, and I thank you, but as a father, Sakura-chan, please think of my feelings. I want to restore us to our place in society, give you girls dowries, repair our bond with the Uchiha…"

"I like our lives as they are!"

The words burst out, Sakura's hands clenching into fists at the allusion to her ex-fiancé. _Returning to that social status would mean…._ She shook off the thought. She didn't know if she would even want to repair the bonds between the Uchiha and Hyuuga now. "Please, Father…"

Hiashi settled down next to his eldest, putting his arm around her like she wasn't nineteen as he murmured comfortingly to her like he had when she was five.

"Come now, Sakura, I won't be away long. And I'll bring you back a gift, something from the port," he said, smiling as Sakura stopped sniffling quietly into his shoulder.

"Did you bribe Hinata and Hanabi the same way?" she asked with a watery laugh, dashing away tears with the back of her hand.

"Of course," her father replied, running his fingertips across his daughter's soft, rose-petal hair. "A fine quill pen for Hanabi, a length of patterned fabric for a new gown for Hinata. So, daughter, what would you like?"

Sakura sighed, worrying a loose fringe at the hem of her nightgown. "Our garden has no red flowers…could you bring me back a packet of seeds or a cutting or two for the house?" The garden was her place, the same way the kitchen was Hinata's and their father's study was Hanabi's. It was Sakura's own contribution to the place they lived where she felt…at home, even now when the advent of winter was filling her favorite place with frost. And it did lack the vibrant color that was her favorite.

"Of course," he agreed, kissing the top of her head. "Now go to bed, I'll see you in the morning before I go."

"I hope you know we're letting you off under protest," Sakura said as she got up with a small smile. "And we won't be happy until you're home."

Hiashi laughed. "Yes Sakura-chan, I know."

=*~*~*=

"Father…"

"I know, Lee." _I know…it's almost like a funeral procession,_ Gai thought sadly, watching Hiashi and his three daughters make their way down the main road. _Did Hiashi even manage to get a horse, or will he be taking a caravan to the capital?_

"Come on, Lee," the older courier urged, snagging the lead reins of his mare. "We'd best go say our goodbyes."

The girls cheered up a little at Lee's earnest, comforting presence, but Hiashi only seemed to grow more on edge as the group neared the village's edge. _What is eating at him?_ Gai wondered, trying to keep the mood cheerful. _Whatever it is, I'll get it out of him before he leaves…_

"Gai-san, a word."

_Or maybe right now. Now works._

Gai followed the other man a little way off before speaking.

"Hiashi-sama…"

"Please, Hiashi-san is fine. I have always been thankful that you haven't told the villagers that we are nobility when you recognized me when we first arrived here. The anonymity here we have is…comforting," Hiashi said, brushing a slightly weathered hand through his long hair.

Gai resisted the urge to raise a single, impressively bushy, eyebrow. Hiashi was…nervous?

"Gai-san…when I go…my…"

"Lee has been saying that many of the village ladies have been asking for Hinata-chan's teacake recipe," Gai interrupted offhandedly. "And I believe there are roasts and things from the butcher that Hinata ordered the other day… Though," Gai added, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "I believe it is just an excuse to visit your eldest. Lee has been saying that Sakura-chan is a blossom of spring in winter of late. I'm sure he will be calling on your residence daily, if you will excuse the intrusion."

Hiashi stated, crystalline lavender eyes softening in relief.

"Gai-san…"

"Hiashi-san, my son and I care for your family like our own. We will watch them while you're away."

Gai watched as the tension left the older man's shoulders. _The dukedom was harsh on him, _he mused. The Hyuuga territories had been much farther north than the village, farther even than the capital. Living where snow covered everything for a third of the year, Gai could understand how a family with magic to foretell the future, find the lost, and divine truth by sight would come to power. _But it's made them so…independent. They're the ones everyone goes to so they have to be the strong ones…unable to ask for help…_

"And now, in return," Gai said, "I have a request of my own." He resisted the urge to grin at Hiashi's curious look.

"Take my horse."

The mare, as if realizing she was being discussed, tugged her reins out of Lee's hands and trotted amicably over to her master.

"Lotus is a courier's mare," Gai introduced, stroking the chestnut sorrel's nose affectionately. "She's fast and reliable, and can fight like a knight's destrier too," Gai added with a wink, trying not to laugh at Hiashi's dumbfounded look at the gesture. "She will get you to the capital and back faster than any other horse."

"Gai-san-,"

"You should accept, Hiashi-san, because I won't take no for an answer."

"I wasn't going to refuse, Gai-san," Hiashi replied with a soft chuckle. "I may be a proud man but…I want to go and return home to my children as quickly as I can. If Lotus will do that for me, I will take her with thanks, friend."

Gai grinned, extending a soldiers' sign, a thumbs up, to the older man.

Hiashi stared a moment before awkwardly, haltingly, returning the gesture.

"Father?"

The Hyuuga patriarch dropped his hand, feeling his ears grow uncomfortably hot.

_I'll miss being able to keep him so off balance, _Gai thought to himself with a small smile. _I hardly get a chance even when he lives here because he's so rarely down in the village._

"Lee…Lee says the roads should be clearest now," Sakura said.

"Very well." Hiashi kissed each daughter's forehead lovingly, pulled himself up into Lotus' saddle, and urged the mare into a trot.

"I will write when I have news," he called over his shoulder, closing his eyes to the sight of his three daughters waving farewell. Focusing his mind on his destination, he kicked Lotus into a gallop and rode out of sight.

=*~*~*=

"Sakura-san! Sakura-san!"

Sakura smiled cheerfully at the frostbitten lilac bush she was pruning, finishing her work there before straightening up to greet the excited courier at the gate.

"Hello, Lee-kun, is it another villager wanting Hinata-chan's teacake recipe?" she teased. Since the first morning after her father had left for the capital, Lee had made a visit to their hilltop house with almost alarming regularity, using the exact same excuse. Sakura suspected her father was behind this, but she didn't want to voice her suspicions in case the visits had been the product of her friend's concern and protectiveness. If she was wrong she would be insulting the young courier and, most likely, hurting his feelings in the process.

Sakura was surprised when Lee brushed aside her playful accusation. _What's going on? Normally Lee-kun would have blushed…_ she mused to herself, curious at this unusual reaction.

"What is-!" The words died on her lips as Lee presented her with a letter sealed in navy wax. The handwriting on the front was painfully familiar to her. "F-Father?"

"My father let me come up with this as soon as we got it," Lee said earnestly, suntanned cheeks growing pink with embarrassment.

"P-please give Gai-san our thanks…and th-thank you too, Lee-kun," Sakura stammered, accepting the letter.

"I…I'm sorry but…"

"I have to go, Sakura-san," Lee interrupted with an understanding smile. "Please share the letter with Hinata-san and Hanabi-chan. Family is important."

Sakura returned his smile with one of her own, emerald eyes shining with all the gratitude the green-clad courier could have asked for. "Thank you, Lee-kun," she called after him sincerely, before disappearing into the house at a sprint.

"Hinata-chan! Hanabi-chan! Father sent us a letter!"

"Father?!"

A loud crescendo-ing crash echoed through the first floor, the sound of a heavy saucepan hitting the floor followed by five or six ceramic plates and a handful of cutlery, ending in the tinkle of a single spoon skittering across the kitchen tiles. Hinata appeared, looking half-drowned in a drenched dress spattered with soapsuds. A door upstairs slammed open as the room's occupant abandoned all of her usual decorum and hurtled down the stairs like any other excited fifteen-year-old.

"Father!" Hanabi stopped short in the parlor, pale cheeks heating into a dark blush, fighting the urge to pout childishly as her sisters shared an affectionate laugh at her eagerness.

"Hinata-chan you're soaked," Sakura said, wiping a tear of mirth from her cheeks. "Why don't you change before we read the letter?"

Hinata shook her head, her eyes bright. "I'm fine, Sakura-neesan, I'd rather hear from Father now than wait another five minutes!"

Still giggling, Sakura nodded, broke the seal on their father's letter, and spread it out to read.

=::=

_Dear daughters of mine,_

_Who would guess that two weeks of riding would cause me to miss you all so much? Gai-san's mare Lotus was truly a treasure when my homesickness struck me hardest. I would talk to her on the road to keep my mind from home and boredom, and now I hardly realize I am doing it until I notice that fellow travelers are giving me strange looks. I suppose you are now all laughing at your father who was renowned in the Hyuuga estates for being a grim sort of man and has been reduced to the kind person who chatters away mindlessly to his horse. _(They were; even Hanabi who held her giggles in with a hand over her mouth.) _I have always regretted that our station now keeps us from having any horses, but perhaps soon that will change._

_I arrived at Kanno yesterday, tired but truly glad my journey was over, at least for a while. Lotus, while a wonderful conversation partner, is not the easiest of mounts though she has a surprising turn of speed. Your father aches and wonders, even as he writes this, whether he is growing too old for riding altogether. I now reside at the Piper and Bard, an inn I think you may remember from three years ago._ ("Oh! Isn't that where we ran into that minstrel?" Hinata asked, brows furrowing as she tried to remember. "The one that cheered us up the night before we left the city," Sakura added, smiling at the memory.) _And if you are wondering, the capital is as lovely as you remember it, but cannot hold a candle to our home._

_Today, I finally set out to the shipyard…_

=*~*~*=

"Was Kanno always this crowded, Lotus?" Hiashi asked his mare, guiding her through the bustling streets to the shipyard tavern the Piper and Bard's innkeeper, Tazuna, had instructed him to visit. If he was to find his ship and captain, he would have the best luck there.

The streets really were crowded, filled not only with men and women from Otoha, but also from farther away nations like Suna and Iwa, and several nations even Hiashi himself couldn't put names to, as well. He was sincerely glad they didn't have very far to go before the tavern came into sight. Swinging down from the saddle, he pulled two copper ryo for the stable boy from his coin purse with a warning to treat Lotus well, and slipped into the tavern, hoping the thick cloak he had pulled around him would keep him from being recognized. Even now the people would not have forgotten the obvious traits of a Hyuuga noble, and Hiashi didn't have any desire to be ridiculed, at best, or knifed in an alleyway later, at worst. The Tayuya's Flute tavern patrons were hardly the most reputable.

The tavern's interior was smoky from pipe tobacco and poorly dried wood in the fireplace, giving the common room a cloud cover that would have successfully blinded a tall man. Though it was barely past ten in the morning, already there were a handful of ship captains a few tankards into their ale. Every set of eyes landed on him as he darkened the doorway, then slid away. Hiashi wasn't fooled. A man dressed like he was in a long cloak might not be too conspicuous in the evening amid the usual tavern bustle, when winter's oncoming chill warranted such clothes, but at the moment he was most likely being surreptitiously watched by every person there.

"A tankard of ale," he ordered gruffly, waving away the tavern woman who approached him to settle into a corner table. He left the ale she brought untouched, resigning himself to a long day's wait.

It wasn't until several hours, another tankard, and a surprisingly decent seafood stew for lunch later that the man he wanted walked through the tavern door.

He was much thinner than when Hiashi had last seen him; he had been paler then, and thicker across the middle. Now, he was tanned from years working a ship in the sun, and somehow…_ Yellower? Jaundiced?_ There were even noticeable strands of silver running through his black locks, a sight that made Hiashi's heart ache. His cousin looked nearly his own age, though they had been born nearly a decade apart.

Feeling suddenly uneasy and out of his depth, Hiashi called him.

"Kou."

The man looked surprised, lavender eyes searching until they landed on Hiashi's cloaked form, and then they narrowed as he sauntered over.

"Who are you? And why do you want me?" Kou asked brusquely, fixing Hiashi with a world-weary glare.

The older Hyuuga looked up, letting the hood of his cloak fall back enough for the last sunlight filtering through the windows to hit his face. "I want you because…I've missed you these three years, Kou."

Identical lavender eyes stared into one another, shock filling one pair as warm pity filled the other.

"Hiashi?"

And the cousins were embracing, hands clasping forearms in a gesture of close familiarity.

"How…How did you know I was here?" Kou asked when they had finally settled, and ordered another round of ale. "The people I asked hardly knew where _you_ were, and you weren't the one out at sea for the last three years!"

"The dock master sent an official letter when you arrived," Hiashi explained.

Kou nodded, quickly filing away this piece of information. "Of course. The Otoha kingdom always did like to keep track of its nobles' goods. I can tell you all that has happened to the ship's cargo but…" his eyes scanned the tavern interior, "not here."

Hiashi frowned. Kou had always been easygoing enough to discuss business wherever; that he was being picky now meant that either he had changed much in three years, or whatever he wished to say was both important and very private. The uneasiness he had first felt seeing his cousin again returned, wrapping a chilly vine of nervousness around his gut. "Then…come with me to my lodgings. The Piper and Bard is a decent place and serves a delicious seasoned waterfowl."

Kou nodded wordlessly and, another tendril of nervousness blossoming in his stomach, Hiashi rose and led the way out…

=*~*~*=

_Kou informs me that the goods on his ship were traded and the returned cargo is sizable. We will spend tomorrow reestablishing merchant connections to sell what Kou has brought back from abroad. I send you all my love, as does Kou. Hopefully this business in Kanno does not keep me for more than a few weeks for I miss you all greatly._

_Your loving father,_

_Hyuuga Hiashi._

=::=

Sakura folded up the letter and tucked it away again silently as Hanabi scooted closer to Hinata and wrapped her small hands around her sister's cold ones. The letter had not mentioned a single word about Neji.

=*~*~*=

"Hiashi…"

"I will be fine, Kou," Hiashi reassured, clasping his cousin's hand that rested on the pommel of Lotus' saddle. "The paths are clear even in winter and…I should return home to my daughters," he said as his free hand tightened on his saddlebag. Inside were the fabric and quill pens his younger daughters had asked for. Winter had made Sakura's request, red flowers for the family garden, impossible.

Kou nodded understandingly, his eyes downcast. "Hiashi I…"

"Save it," Hiashi said, shaking his head against Kou's unspoken apology. "It isn't your fault, Kou. You did what you could. I'm serious," he added severely when Kou still refused to meet his eyes. "I would have probably acted the same and, it could have happened to anyone. In the storm it could have been your ship instead. It just was…Neji's time…."

Kou's grip on Hiashi's hand tightened as the man finally raised his head. His lavender eyes were sharp with sadness. "I will visit you soon, Hiashi," he promised. "As soon as I tie up the loose ends here."

"I'll expect you in the spring," Hiashi replied and, with a final squeeze of his cousin's hand, he kicked Lotus into a brisk trot out of the capital.

It was several days later that a jolt from Lotus as she came to a sudden halt made Hiashi notice that the road he had been taking home split in two before him.

The path he had taken on his way to Kanno leading down into the plains on his right, a different path through a forest on his left.

Lotus tossed her head as if to ask which path she ought to take.

"It'll be two…maybe three days if we take the plains road, girl," Hiashi said, not even noticing now that he talked to the mare like he would a human companion. "But the other road…should take us home by tonight."

_Home…_

A warm hearth, his family, Hinata's cooking… _Hinata. Hinata should know that Neji…that her fiancé…_ Hiashi sighed heavily into Lotus' made. "I need to go home. Hinata needs to know so that she can…move on…"

He tugged Lotus' reins to the left path.

=*~*~*=

"Aren't forests supposed to be warmer than the plains?" Hiashi wondered to himself hours later. He refused to consider that it was growing colder, and darker, with the advent of night. He blew on his gloved hands, trying to work some warmth into them. "I should have bought sturdier gloves like Kou said," he muttered to himself. He could see those lovely, fleece-lined ones Kou had tried to talk him into getting in his mind's eye, beckoning him like some ghostly apparition.

He reached for them…and lurched in the saddle with a gut-turning jerk. He had fallen asleep on horseback; he was lucky not to be prone on the forest floor. "It needs…warmer…," Hiashi mumbled into Lotus' mane. "So…cold…"

The mare beneath the frostbitten man champed at her bit and slowed to a smoother walk. Hiashi struggled to stay conscious; he knew the dangers both of falling asleep on horseback and the more deadly one of falling asleep outside during a cold winter night.

"Mus…Lotus…" he stiffly pulled the thick cloak closer around his shoulders and hunched up in the saddle, trying to capture some more of the horse's warmth under him. "Fi-find shelter," he told the horse, trying to keep his teeth from chattering, or panic from swamping his mind.

'_I have to live long enough to get back home…tell Hinata…'_ He chuckled grimly to himself, blue lips pulled into a tight, mirthless smile. '_So desperate and delirious I'm talking to the horse like she'll understand me and help me out of this mess…'_

Brain fogging, the man didn't feel as Lotus made a subtle shift in her direction and carried him farther and farther away from the road.

Horse and man forged through the swiftly rising darkness of the forest as a silent pair, one determined, the other just barely clinging to consciousness. The susurration of the wind through the bare branches of the trees made for an eerie counterpoint to the silence around them. Later, Hiashi would wonder how the mare seemed to know which direction to follow, even when there was no path to guide her. But for now, it took all his strength to keep his seat in the saddle.

The cold sliced through his clothing like knives, trying to steal the life from his body, muddling his brain until he could barely string two thoughts together in his mind.

He was so disoriented that it took him several long minutes to realize, nearly an hour later, that what his eyes were futilely trying to focus on was a grand, frost-covered mansion.

Hiashi fell, rather than dismounting, out of the saddle as soon as Lotus found her way into the place's stables. Removing her tack and saddle was the hardest thing he'd ever done; his fingers felt like sausages disconnected from his brain even in the soothing warmth of the paddock. He draped a blanket over Lotus' back and filled a handy trough with a bucket of oats he'd discovered in the stall he led her to, and then stumbled through a nearby door that fortunately led to the mansion's interior.

A less weary man would have wondered at the emptiness that greeted him. He would have been surprised that no footman came to greet him in to see the place's master, or usher him out to a place to sleep that was more suitable for a common-looking man like himself.

Hiashi didn't care.

He pushed open the first door he could find, murmured an incoherent thanks when it opened onto a bedchamber, and collapsed into the bed, asleep before his head touched the pillows.

* * *

Hiashi's finally gotten to THE CASTLE! Next chapter: We finally get to meet Beast!Naruto, and perhaps our leading lady will meet her main man!

The muse would appreciate any and all cookies you have to offer her ^^ thanks a ton for reading!

Wow, I feel like such a busy girl, I've uploaded/updated one chapter each Friday, Saturday, and now Sunday XD


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